


chip on his shoulder (off the old block)

by eyemoji



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Multi, inspired by a couple of ppl's hcs in the discord that goddard microchips their employees, it's pain time kiddos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:35:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyemoji/pseuds/eyemoji
Summary: “You,”  he says, and the grip on his shoulder tightens imperceptibly. He lets his eyes fall closed. Kepler brings his other hand up to Jacobi’s cheek, hovers above it for just the briefest second, as if afraid to touch him, afraid to break him-- and then slides the hand down to Jacobi’s chin, which he cups and tilts up until Jacobi’s forced to look him in the eyes.“Think very carefully about what you’re asking for,” he breathes.Jacobi’s instincts will turn out to be right, in the end.--Goddard Futuristics likes to keep track of their employees. Who they do. Where they go. What they want.





	chip on his shoulder (off the old block)

**i. who he does**

 

It’s a quasi-secret omnipresent fact within the Special Projects division of Goddard Futuristics that Daniel Jacobi was quite literally handheld into his job.

 

 _It’s not everyone who gets flirted with by the great Lieutenant-Colonel Kepler and lives to tell the tale,_ Maxwell teases, elbowing him in the side.

 

“He was only Major then,” he fires back.

 

 _But what if I don’t want to have the tale told?_   he doesn’t say.

 

When he mentions it to Kepler during one of their...private meetings, he doesn’t do anything besides raise an eyebrow in his typical infuriating manner.

 

“So?”

 

“I-- sir, I want to have more of a reputation than the stray the LC dragged in who he may-or-may-not-be- (but-probably-is-) sleeping with.”

 

Kepler stops. Snorts. “Stop wasting my time with this inane whining, Mr Jacobi.” He picks up again, snapping into Jacobi with renewed vigor, and Jacobi loses all sense of the conversation as all the threads of logic in his mind come to an abrupt end in _Kepler_.

 

_“Sir--”_

 

“Earn it.”

 

Jacobi’s shoulder prickles where his newest scar is to heal.

 

**ii. where he goes**

 

Maxwell tells him she could smell him from a mile away. What she doesn’t tell him is that Goddard can, too, in a more figurative sense, that they can track him all the way around the globe and back a million times over, that they _do_ track him, that they’ve taken somewhat of an....interest in him lately.

 

She doesn’t tell him this because a) her contract explicitly prevents her from doing so, and b) more importantly, he’s safer not knowing. She’s heard stories of what Daniel Jacobi was like before he was recruited into Goddard Futuristics, back when he was just a scrappy, weary man making his way through life knowing that the world hated men like him; that fate, that brute, was out to get him before he’d even known the game had started; that it was better to slump at a bar stool and drink away the day until he forgot that real life even existed, until the solace he found at the end of a bottle or the bottom of a glass turned into the sweet, red-hot mirth he could find at the receiving end of a good right hook, when his natural thirst for thrill blurred right into self-destructive masochism and not one person cared enough to stop him. Most days, now, it’s hard to connect the smirking, snarking guy who once tried to stuff as many Pringles as he could in his mouth and ended up vomiting all over her precious gaming controls to the real-life horror-story screw-up she’s read so many classified files about. But sometimes, during the bad times, the dark days, the moments where everything’s going to shit and Kepler’s laying it on him-- or maybe he isn’t, she’s still not quite sure which is the problem-- and he just won’t _listen,_ she can catch a glimpse of the darkness behind his hollow eyes, of the ghost lurking beneath the surface of his sclera, waiting to be let loose.

She’s not trying to save him from Goddard; that’s a task no one person could ever accomplish, and she’s not about to waste time trying. She’s trying to protect him from himself.

 

“Seriously,” she says, her tone lighthearted and airy, “take a shower.”

 

“But _whatever_ will I _wear?_ ” he asks, and the lilt in his voice is such an exact mimicry of whatever strange and terrifying being would be the offspring of Special Projects Director Rachel Young and your classic Disney princess, that she can’t help but burst into laughter.

 

“Take whatever,” she manages to get out, once she’s calmed herself down enough to make some semblance of words. “It’s not like half of it isn’t already yours.”

 

The instant he’s stepped into the bathroom, she pulls up the files she’d been looking at before he’d bounded into her apartment without the slightest courtesy of a knock. There are three windows. The first is a map. There’s a blinking cursor on it, seemingly stationary, but anyone who had been looking over her shoulder as she’d waited for Jacobi to arrive would have noticed it moving across the street, drawing ever closer and closer to the symbol on the map that delineates her home. The second is a note from Mr Cutter, addressed to Special Projects’ “Director of Intelligence.” The third, and most crucial for Maxwell’s purposes, is a log of every transfer request Lieutenant-Colonel Kepler’s ever made. They date back to Kepler’s first day as Major, _reasonable_ , Maxwell supposes, _when you factor in that that’s when he became head of the SI-5._ The first thirteen or so entries, Maxwell dismisses, since they’re all direct results of Kepler rearranging his assets from his new position. Any vaguely strategic officer worth his salt would do the same. The next four or five are unremarkable in the sense that Kepler must have felt that none of his rapidly rotating second-in-commands were up to his standards. They all take place over the span of around two months, and Maxwell thanks her lucky stars that neither she nor Jacobi were around during that initial adjustment period.

 

There are a couple of additional requests that seem within normal parameters, but when those are removed, _that’s_ where things become interesting. Because the rest of the pages and pages of transfer requests? They’re all for one Daniel Jacobi. Maxwell knows the story behind each one. June 8th was the first time he’d kissed him. July 23rd was the second. The Wacombe mission, which they’d gotten back from a day before Kepler put in another request, was the first time they’d… gone a little farther.

 

Maxwell turns to the letter. _“Warren,_ ” it reads, “ _Stop sending transfer requests for your newest second-in-command. You_ _will_ _give it at least six months before even_ attempting _to waste my time again. In return, put in a request at any time outside of that grace period, and I will graciously remove him from your command, effective immediately. Ta - xoxo Marcus”_

Alright, so Cutter doesn’t _really_ sign off with ‘hugs and kisses,’ and he’d probably rather have all of Goddard Futuristics be burned to the ground than be referred to by his first name, but Maxwell has a sneaking suspicion that there’s more to Cutter’s influence over Kepler than what meets the eye. She has no evidence, but she’s not exactly ecstatic about the prospect of digging up the necessary information, nor to go through the immense psychological trauma that the endeavor would require. Ergo, she leaves it alone and far, _far_ out of mind. She hopes it doesn’t become relevant one day. She knows that this means it probably will.

 

A sharp-eyed witness would notice that there haven’t been any transfer-out requests for Daniel Jacobi in a long time; it’s been _years_ since the last one. A sharper-eyed witness might catch that the requests stopped coming in since the signed date on Cutter’s note in file 2. And the sharpest witness of all might do some hacking and notice that although the rows after that date are blank, the code of the system holds some traces of overlay data-- and that the timestamps for the first time whoever changed the database to reflect this most likely false information match up eerily close to Alana Maxwell’s first few days on the job.

 

A _ping!_   brings Maxwell back to reality as she checks the notification and immediately turns to eye the closed bathroom door behind her.

 

 _I wonder what story he’s got for me today,_ she thinks, as she begins the arduous process of erasing Kepler’s newest transfer request. _It had better be good_.

 

Miles away in an office the size of Maxwell’s bedroom, Mr Cutter chuckles as he watches Maxwell’s magic work itself in real time.

 

“It will be, Alana.”

 

**iii. what he wants**

 

 _“You,”_  he says, and the grip on his shoulder tightens imperceptibly. He lets his eyes fall closed. Kepler brings his other hand up to Jacobi’s cheek, hovers above it for just the briefest second, as if afraid to touch him, afraid to break him-- and then slides the hand down to Jacobi’s chin, which he cups and tilts up until Jacobi’s forced to look him in the eyes.

 

“Think very carefully about what you’re asking for,” he breathes, the words ghosting across Jacobi’s lips and cheek and waterfalling over into the dip of his neck, where their heat pools and sparks a new fire in Jacobi’s eyes. He doesn’t respond with words, choosing instead to lift himself onto his tiptoes until his face is nearly level with Kepler’s. His gaze, for once, is steady as he leans forward, curling a hand into Kepler’s hair and pulling him down, down towards his lips, into a kiss that lasts forever and no time at all as Kepler breaks it and stumbles back, the least in-control Jacobi’s ever seen him, and it's Jacobi who follows him in until he's up against the wall, who looks up at him with his best attempt at a quirked eyebrow and places two hot steady hands on his hips, and says, in the lowest voice he can muster, eyes lidded, mouth dangerously mesmerizing,

 

“I know what I said. Sir.”

 

For one drawn-out heartbeat, Kepler is silent and deathly still, and a flash of terror travels down Jacobi's spine; did he say the wrong thing; was Kepler warning him, earlier? Is this the last sight he sees before the angel underneath him sends him hurtling to his doom in a sphere so far below his lofty descendance, like the hellspawn he is? He deserves it, to be beneath Kepler one way or another, and it’s why this reversal of power dynamics feels so _alien_ to him (oh, how apt, considering where they’re going,) and why it’s more than simple relief that he’s going to _live_ that crashes over him like a wave against his rocky beaches, even as his jagged edges and torn corners rip it apart before it can fully hit, when Kepler raises his hands to cover Jacobi’s and takes one step forward, just enough for him to shove his knee in between Jacobi’s legs as he leans down and roughly steals a kiss. Already, Jacobi can feel the moans bubbling up in his throat, and he does his best to keep them trapped in the hollows of his respiratory system as part of some half-hearted noble attempt to make Kepler _work for it_ . He doesn’t disappoint either, as one hand brushes over his waist and hooks itself into his belt loops while the other trails up his back and lodges firmly in his hair, although Jacobi knows that if Maxwell were here, she’d comment on how _he’s only doing it for the power trip, Daniel; he doesn’t_ actually _care._

 _Well,_ I _don’t care,_ he tries to think in response, but cuts himself off with a gasp as Kepler’s fingernails rake lightly across his back. He can’t contain his shivering as Kepler sucks bruises into his neck before lightly running his tongue over the now-sensitive spots. _His nose is cold,_ is the only comprehensible thing running through Jacobi’s mind as Kepler presses it against his neck, leaving his lips to murmur against the base of his throat. Every swallow is thicker for Jacobi, now, and Kepler’s mouth curves into a smile as he feels Jacobi’s throat stick.

 

“Come now, Daniel,” he says, and the buzzing his voice makes against Jacobi’s Adam’s Apple isn’t the only buzz he’s feeling, “on your knees,” and Jacobi follows his order without hesitation, seamlessly sliding onto the ground like he’s suddenly imbued with the grace of a river, pouring himself and all his hopes and dreams and _wants_ into the figure kneeling in front of Kepler, whose hand is still tangled in his hair as he tugs Jacobi’s face upward.

 

“You always did love running that mouth, Jacobi,” he says, and his mood is too light for the situation they’re in, “I think it’s about time you demonstrated what else you can do with it.”

 

If Jacobi had been able to think about anything besides the task and man in front of him, he would have pictured Maxwell, standing to the side and rolling her eyes, “That line is so cheesy.”

 

As it is, there are _far_ too many sensations for him to focus on instead.

 

Time passes, but the moment doesn’t, and where Jacobi scrabbles for purchase, bites down with a fervor, moves with a frantic energy like it’s the last time he’ll ever touch Kepler like this, Kepler is slow, measured, takes his time; draws out the most delectable sounds from Jacobi as he presses deep, controlled kisses up his jaw, brings him crashing to his knees just by skimming his hand across his torso.

 

Jacobi’s instincts will turn out to be right, in the end.

 

**iv. how he is now**

 

No. That’s the word of the hour, isn’t it, the word of the day, too, of the week, the month, the year?

 

 _No,_ he’d said, just a few short weeks ago, when a shade had come a-knocking and another vital decision decided not to fall on his shoulders, even as the gravity of the situation crushed him beneath his own ribs. When Jacobi had returned, hoping for warm limbs and the taste of whiskey-drenched lips that he’d been missing for so long, and instead Kepler had listened to his entire proposal and then turned him over to Dr Hilbert without a second glance, dismissing him as effectively as if he’d said “My name is Colonel Warren J Kepler. You killed my second in command. Prepare to die.” (Which, of course, Kepler would never say, but it had still made Jacobi crack a smile when Eiffel had done the imitation.)

 

 _No,_ he’ll say, months from now, when he’s strapped down onto a terrifyingly sterile table, thrashing about in a futile attempt to escape from bonds far tighter and more secure than anything Kepler’s ever used on him. It’s only when the point of the scalpel will first slice into his skin and he’ll howl to the four winds as if begging them to carry his cry; it’s only when the blood gushing out all over the table will pass the point of no return and he’ll have already exhausted all his tears on less fragile things-- _don’t cry for me, Argentina--_ and the rubbery sound of stretched silicon will worm its way into the the massacred flesh of his shoulder and draw out a shiny little world of semiconductors and controlled gates; flat and smooth and _innocuous_ and the worst kind of sleeper cell; it’s only when it’s too late that he’ll realize how horrifyingly real it must have all been to Kepler-- _I’m sorry I doubted you, sir; sorry you’re gone--_ and even though it’s far too late to make anything resembling amends in that direction, he’ll pray to the god he doesn’t believe in that somehow, Kepler will hear him, will know that he, Daniel Jacobi, finally understands. Maybe he’d be proud of him, he’ll think, as he feels the strength leaving him, piece by piece, the world finally taking him apart like Kepler used to; maybe he’ll be proud that this is the way he goes, that he fought, that, in the end, he prevailed. That he’ll die as _himself_ . That he’ll die doing his _job._ That he’ll die by bleeding out on a Goddard Futuristics standard-issue lab table with no one to hold his hand and no one to whisper to in the dark of the night by the light of the moon.

 

He’ll be alone, just like Kepler always promised he would be, and when he’s gone the only bit of him that will be left will be the leftover traces of DNA they won’t quite be able to wipe out of the extracted chip sprawled on the tray-table next to him. They’ll insert it into another human-- hygiene be damned-- or perhaps they’ll lock it in an airtight vacuum sealed container and ship it off to a vault somewhere, and there’ll be no one to remember how Kepler had rubbed the bubbling on his shoulder with a convincingly disinterested look when he’d first had it implanted or how Maxwell’s dextrous fingers swept up the length of her own, twisting and turning it to catch the light, marvelling at its structure and durability and sheer computing power the day she took it out. She’d offered to do it for him, he’ll remember, on one of his last few breaths. He’ll regret rejecting the offer in his usual brusque manner.

 

Maxwell, not Kepler, will be his last thought before his brain short-circuits.

 

But now, not the past, not the not-so-distant future, is what matters, and it’s during _now_ that Jacobi stands on the edge of a precipice; alone, but not as alone as he someday will be, not as alone as he had once been. Maxwell is gone, and he is in a brig, and so is Kepler, but it’s not Kepler’s touch that he craves, that he lives for, anymore.

 

No, now he lives for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> yes, i enjoy hurting jacobi.
> 
> catch me @justasmalltownai on tumblr.


End file.
